The history of cannabis in South Africa contains two particular trajectories that were sometimes in direct contradiction with one another.

In his 2020 State of the Nation Address, President Cyril Ramaphosa noted that “this year we will open up and regulate the commercial use of hemp products, providing opportunities for small-scale farmers; and formulate policy on the use of cannabis products for medicinal purposes, to build this industry in line with global trends.

South Africa must guard against the commercial production of hemp and cannabis interfering with food security, agricultural association Agri SA warned on Thursday.

Eastern Cape government has announced it would support legislation that allows the production of cannabis.

Canna-Q™ - the operator of a major medical cannabis project in Lesotho – has appointed Uzenzele Holdings as part of its advisory team to secure finance and off-take agreements in 2020.

 Canna-Q™ is a transformative Lesotho-based medicinal cannabis cultivation project which will be actively seeking strategic partnerships in the European Union (EU), Canada and the US amongst others.  

Uzenzele is a South African based advisory firm specialising in assisting entrepreneurs raise capital through a variety of different channels including debt, equity and grant incentives.

“The Canna-Q™project is transformative for the Lesotho economy,” says Zahra Rawjee, transaction advisor at Uzenzele. Rawjee notes that while nearly 50 cannabis project licenses have been issued in Lesotho, only a handful will have the necessary technical and financial backing to bring their product to market and this is one of the areas where Canna-Q™is likely to differentiate itself.   

Canna-Q™ facilities will be Good Manufacturing Practice (GMP) certified to European Union standing and the facility is expected to benefit from access to a combination of both technical and financial skills within the group.

“Raising funding is only part of our mandate,” says Nadia Rawjee, a director at Uzenzele.

She adds: “To ensure the sustainability of the project, we need to secure high-quality off-take agreements and strategic partnerships in the export market and identify businesses operating in the fields of medical and pharmaceutical cannabis who are looking for high-quality suppliers.”

 According to research gathered by Barclays Bank, the global market for medical cannabis is now estimated at $150bn and could reach $272bn in 2028 and represents a significant new opportunity for high-quality suppliers and manufacturing operations.

 With the Southern African economic region desperately seeking new industries and economic growth clusters, projects such as those being undertaken by Canna-Q™ could be game-changers for the region.

After years of banning cannabis in all forms, South Africa is quickly jumping through hoops to become one of the more lenient countries when it comes to using cannabis, and a likely massive competitor in the world hemp growing market.

Unlocking the full potential of cannabis for agriculture and human health will require a co-ordinated scientific effort to assemble and map the cannabis genome, says a just-published international study led by University of Saskatchewan researchers.

A growing number of countries in Africa are looking to cannabis as the ticket out of poverty, and foreign investment for this sector has flooded in. Activists who pushed for legal commercial cultivation now face the challenge of crafting a cannabis economy that empowers small farmers and rural communities, rather than replicating the elitist forms of past agro-export industries.

New legislation signals government’s deepening embrace of the cannabis sector and its potential to promote sustainable employment, foreign investment and GDP growth.
 
 
The famed 2018 Constitutional Court decision in Minister of Justice and Constitutional Development v Prince (the Prince case) was undoubtedly big news – personal and private cultivation, possession, use and consumption of cannabis are no longer criminal acts.

A new analysis of cannabis research funding in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom has found that $1.56 billion was directed to the topic between 2000 and 2018—with about half of the money spent on understanding the potential harms of the recreational drug.

The minister of justice and correctional services Ronald Lamola published the draft of the Cannabis for Private Purposes Bill.

South African cannabis policy is currently at a crossroads. In 2018, the Constitutional Court effectively decriminalised private cannabis use. Since then, the government has continued to grapple with how to regulate this plant and its products, locally called ‘dagga’.

In October this year, police in the Western Cape announced that provincial detectives had arrested two suspects on drug trafficking charges during a raid at a business park in the suburb of Ottery.

South Africa is developing a strategy for the industrialisation and commercialisation of cannabis.

With a forecasted revenue of over 20 billion by 2024, the CBD market is booming.1 But what exactly is CBD and how effective is it? We look at 9 proven or possible health benefits of CBD oil.

South Africa -Government wants to have concept plans for the development of the hemp and dagga sector in place, especially considering the potential the industry could hold for job creation, says Busani Ngcaweni, the head of policy and research in the presidency.

Scientists have finally sniffed out the molecules behind marijuana’s skunky aroma.

The 2018 judgment of our Constitutional Court extended us all the right to grow, possess and use cannabis in private. It also afforded Parliament two years (long since passed) to amend necessary statutes to accommodate this.

South Africa has a three- to five-year window to enter and establish a strong position in the European medical cannabis market, before it is outstripped by hungrier and quicker competitors from Latin America and parts of Asia, and other lowcost producers.

As you read this, cannabis flower is soaring from country to country. That’s right — cannabis is a global market breaking through borders.